F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 35
hand to get in the head sail, and get the craft trimmed up a little.
A dash of the same brine will help keep the ballast right, then a
skysail-yard breakfast must be carefully stowed away, in order to
give a firmness to the timbers, and on the strength of these two
blocks for shoring up the hull, you must begin little by little, and
keep on brightening up until you have got the craft all right again.
And when you have got her right you must keep her right. I say,
Tom!--it won't do. You must reef down, or the devil 'll seize the
helm in one of these blows, and run you into a port too warm for
pea-jackets." For a moment, Spunyarn seems half inclined to grasp
Tom by his collarless coat and shake the hydrophobia, as he calls
it, out of him; then, as if incited by a second thought, he draws
from his shirt-bosom a large, wooden comb, and humming a tune
commences combing and fussing over Tom's hair, which stands erect
over his head like marline-spikes. At length he gets a craft-like
set upon his foretop, and turning his head first to the right, then
to the left, as a child does a doll, he views him with an air of
exultation. "I tell you what it is, Tom," he continues, relieving
him of the old coat, "the bright begins to come! There's three
points of weather made already."
"God bless you, Spunyarn," replies Tom, evidently touched by the
frankness and generosity of the old sailor. Indeed there was
something so whole-hearted about old Spunyarn, that he was held in
universal esteem by every one in jail, with the single exception of
Milman Mingle, the vote-cribber.
"Just think of yourself, Tom-don't mind me," pursues the sailor as
Tom squeezes firmly his hand. "You've had a hard enough time of it--"
Tom interrupts by saying, as he lays his hands upon his sides, he is
sore from head to foot.
"Don't wonder," returns the sailor. "It's a great State, this South
Carolina. It seems swarming with poor and powerless folks. Everybody
has power to put everybody in jail, where the State gives a body two
dog's-hair and rope-yarn blankets to lay upon, and grants the